Warco WM 250V power feed stuck/crash

Hi,

Just had my new WM250V lathe.

...unfortunatley I recently did a power crossfeed oepration that went the full extent of its travel and ground to a halt.

can't unlock the cross slide power feed handle or the carriage half nut lock.

can't reverse out or manually wind out the crossslide and the carriage/saddle is very stiff to move now.

Any idea's ??

planning on undoing the Gib screws on crossslide to see if that will help.

Thanks

Matt

Try undoing & taking the leadscrew bracket off at the right hand end then try to unlock your leadscrew 1/2 nut as this drives through gears to your x feed, once you've taken the strain off it should help you to manually disconnect the 1/2 nut lever... check the 1/2 nut teeth, plus the gear teeth if you can see them as it looks like you have jammed them both together.... nothing ventured, nothing gained!

George.

With the power off and everything still engaged manually turn the chuck backwards. This may be very stiff. Check how the cross slide feed nut is secured, sometimes this is by socket cap head screws from the top of the cross slide. If this is the case undoing these will take the strain off it. Otherwise try taking the handle off.

Good luck.

David

If your 250 is anything like my 280 you may find that the sacrificial pin in the drive shaft has done its job and prevented any damage (pride excluded).

If so, then David's suggestion is a good starting point, and will tell you if the pin is broken, but is not going to fix it. However I can say that in this circumstance George's description is a proven approach. (Obviously this is hypothetical and/or happened to a friend).

If the pin is broken then remember to punch it out with the shaft removed. That will leave you with the problem of what to replace it with, I seem to recall that I turned down a piece of plastic that has stood the test of time.

I'd definitely try this before doing anything with the gibs.

Good luck

Mike

Many thanks for replies.....

I did take the cross slide off to have a look but still unable to move anything.

undid the 4 allen head screws on top of the Apron Assembly and that seperated the assembly just enough to allow me to move the power cross feed lever and also freed up the half nut lever. everything moved freely after that.

Put everything back and then looked at why Leadscrew was not rotating.

As Mike said the Leadscrew shear pin had done its job ! tried to punch this out all the way but really struggling to get the bit out that is embedded in the leadscrew shaft.

The Grizzly Manual says you can hammer it out while leadscrew is in place but wondering is it better to get the lead screw off and try hammer it out then so not to cause damage to the connecting cover and gear box bits and bobs.

ps Sorry .... another quick question when you fit the high speed belt on the pulleys (the one they leave in the box when you get the lathe delivered) are you supposed to take off the low speed belt or can you leave it on....reason being that there seems to be an awful lot of heat generated under the cover and the aluminium pulleys seem very hot so not sure if this is normal.

Thanks again

Matt

Edited By Matt Homer 1 on 13/06/2015 14:41:07

Hi Matt

Yes you should only have one of the 'speed' belts on at a time...

Hope you're making progress with the repair.

Regards

Garry

Manager to gentley drill out some of the soft metal shear pin and tap the rest of it out.

temporary measure ....cut off bit of allen key that fitted loosely and lead screw rotates now.

All power feeds on carriage/crossslide seem to work ok now.

As Mike suggested just need to turn down a piece of brass or plastic to slot back in and should be good to go.

Bit of a weird thing going on with the thread dial indicator rotating when manually moving saddle but not when the half nut is engaged for power feed....would expect this or maybe its me still learning the ropes LOL

Hi Matt,

It's you still learning!

When threading you use the dial to syncronise the position. It is so you can release the half nuts when threading and move the carrage back to the begining of the thread so you start cutting at the same position.

Cheers Michael

I found on my 280 that you could not quite swing it out of engagement, probably what is happening is when you are engaging the nut it is just pushing the leadscrew out of the last bit of mesh. Initially I filed a little off so it would swing clear (you only need to engage it when using for threading) but as I don't do a lot of threading I now leave it off the machine and screw it on when needed.

J

I had this happen to me on my 250 too. To get the pin out you must have the pin lined up and it very easily knocks out. Warco supply new shear pins or you could turn a brass one. Don't be tempted to use a nail as a shear pin. If you try to drill it out and the holes are not lined up you could end up doing damage to the shafts.

Thanks everyone for replies...really impressed with the forum and helpful replies.

Will contact warco about replacement pin...can't see much online apart from marine shaft shear pins.

suppose I should make one really now I have a lathe !

Thanks again everyone.

Matt, the shear pin is nothing special, make one out of some soft aluminium......or brass as as a last resort...but nothing harder.

If you are using a piece of Allen key as a shear pin be very careful until you replace with the correct item, they are extremely tough and may not be the weakest link any more.

Mike

The dimensions of the shear pin is .125" x 22mm long. Just checked a few minutes ago and it certainly looks, feel and files like brass.

Interesting post. Just had a similar thing happen to my brand new Wm250V,

after getting the lathe on the bench cleaning oiling and greasing I did two or three manual cuts on a piece of brass then tried a power feed, about 2 inches from finishing the cut the power feed stopped so I quickly turned the machine off. I struggled to disengage the power feed but did eventually mange it, I then struggled to move the carriage away from the chuck as it was really stiff until it got to the centre of the lathe where it freed up a bit.

It seems that the shaft with a gear at the end (sorry not sure what I would call that ) has crashed into the side of the lathe (see picture) and bent the shaft, hence why it moves freely at the middle of the lathe bed but advancing it forward or backward 10cm tightens it up. It has also chewed up all the gears

This is a brand new lathe and it also has a crack or hole in the casting of the power feed gear box and is leaking oil, I have contacted Warco so will see how good there customer service is.

I was disappointed with this as it was my very first operation of a lathe and was hoping to get a good couple of days practice in.

Two similar things happened on my WM250V:

1) I engaged longitudinal feed when I meant cross feed, with a locked carriage. It bent the shaft of the bed pinion and broke one of the keyed bushes in the headstock geartrain in half. I lived for a while with very sticky patches in the carriage motion every 3 turns or so. Eventually I found I could straighten the bent pinion shaft with the toe end of a standard crowbar and had no more trouble with it.

Hi

Not sure what happened to me, I engaged longitudinal feed and it was working as expected until it arrived near to the end of its cut, I had only just finished to manual cuts so I know the carriage was not locked, I have no idea why it would bump the side of the lathe as it did. I will have to see what Warco say about it, although I am confident it wasn't anything I had done.

Edited By Bombardier on 04/06/2022 10:56:53

2) I ran out of travel on the crossslide once. The cross leadscrew shearpin did its job and bruk, but the broken end fell out into the apron gearbox, where it dropped into the toothgap of a pinion and jammed it solid. The oil was sticky enough to stop it falling out if I partially turned the mechanism. I had to disconnect the main leadscrew so I could remove the apron front and fish about in the gloom until I flipped the remains of the pin into the oil left in the apron - from where there was no prospect of it ever being picked up again as long as gravity still works as it now does. Then I replaced it with a new pin - very slightly bent to reduce the risk of part of it dropping out again. Problem fixed.

But I see you've got a mangled tooth on your bed rack. It would certainly be best if the rack were replaced. In my case the main leadscrew shearpin (see issue 1) above ) was made of steel, not the usual brass. If this is the situation on yours you might make a case to Warco to replace it.

I always check the available travel when powering the cross slide on my Raglan when cutting towards the operator. Most usually an issue if parting off from the rear tool post. Going the other way, the feed screw simply runs off the end of the nut - but one can see the clearance behind the lathe before then.

When I failed to pay proper attention to all that was going on, crashed my Saddle into the Headstock.

During freeing off everything, and repairing found that the Leadscrew and Feed shaft were joined to their drives by ROLLPINS! The replacements are 5 mm brass, drilled through 2.5 mm. to weaken them

Hopefully, the next time that I make a gross error, the pin will shear rather than damage what is downstream of it.

HTH

Howard